There is a point in One Assassination Under God – Chapter 2 where the language of survival finally becomes the language of retaliation. “The Arsonist” is that point. The song is not simply about having survived an attempt to destroy you. It is about what happens afterward, when the person who has been burned decides that the fire did not finish him and that the scars it left behind have become part of his strength. Manson himself described the song as the moment when the narrative of the two chapters “crystallizes into a battle stance,” and, referring to the painting he created for it, said that the “burned scar tissue” had formed into armor. That description gets very close to the heart of the song. The fire has not disappeared. It has changed him. The title is important because Manson does not call the song The Survivor or The Victim . He calls it "The Arsonist." An arsonist deliberately starts a fire, and this changes the entire perspective of the song. The speaker is no...
Today, March 31st, is the final performance for Evan Rachel Wood as Audrey in the Off-Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors , and to announce her final performance and bid farewell Evan shared some final thoughts with us on Instagram. In her message, she tells us how it was a childhood dream of hers to perform on stage in New York, but then her "life was derailed by trauma and tragedy, and it seemed my dreams were stolen." What exactly is she referring to here? The first time Evan was offered to perform on a New York stage was for the 2011 Broadway production of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark , but because it was delayed it created a scheduling conflict for Evan, so she bowed out in March 2010, which was a few months into her engagement with Marilyn Manson. Is Evan now blaming Manson for stealing her dream? Her second chance to star on a New York stage came 14 years later with Little Shop of Horrors , and in between that time Evan has starred in a numbe...